Quest: Steal the blessed chalice from Gundar's holy temple

A holy temple on top of the lightning mountain in the monster nation holds great treasures.

Its greatest treasure is the blessed chalice, which is capable of miracles.

Steal the chalice and escape with it safely.

Win conditions: Obtain the blessed chalice and return to the start

Fail conditions: You die

The chalice is destroyed

I need to steal a chalice?

Why did the god give me a mission to steal something from his own temple...?

I will never understand what he is thinking...

Well, what I'm more interested in, is the other part.

'A holy temple on top of the lightning mountain in the monster nation.'

In the monster nation.

That probably means that right now I am in or at least near the monster nation.

He wouldn't teleport me too far away from the location I need to enter, right?

But still, I heard about this place a bit.

It's the place that contains some of the most powerful monsters in the world.

And entering this place almost always means certain death.

...or so they say.

I don't know how true that is.

The humans haven't explored this area that much.

It's mainly because the teams sent to explore it either never returned or returned with just a few of the original members.

All of the others died.

From Belion's personal experiences, I was told about the black hydra thing that lives here.

I can't really grasp its exact power level from just his story, but I still think something like that would be quite powerful.

It was using dark magic at a higher level than one of the members, who could use expert level dark magic.

So it's safe to assume it can use master level dark magic.

Not even I can do that yet...

Anyway...

Where do I need to go now?

It said 'on top of the lightning mountain'.

Where is that?

After focusing on that point, the familiar mysterious ball of energy shoots out and heads for the mountains in the distance.

I should come up with a simpler name for that thing.

How about a pointer?

Or guiding light?

Hmm...I'll just call it quest pointer.

Those mountains are really far away though...

It might take an entire day of running for me to get to them...

Well, luckily I have some meat stored up at least.

...but no water.

Damn, why didn't I store some water.

I was on a ship surrounded by water a few minutes ago too...

I hope there are some ponds around.

...

Let's look.

I pour mana into my belt and squat down.

Then I put all of my strength into my legs and jump as high as I can.

[Wind blast]

I also used wind magic to propel myself even higher.

It made me fly above even the clouds.

From there, I could see the vast flat ground extending below me.

I could also see some forest behind the mountains I needed to go to.

I tried to quickly search a bit more but then...I hit the border.

My head bumped on it and at that moment, my entire body was restrained with bright yellow threads.

Shit.

I jumped too high.

I didn't think I would actually reach here...

While still suspended in the air and with my entire body sealed, it appeared.

Two azure glowing smoke clouds formed in the air in front of me.

And around them started appearing these light-reflecting yellow threads.

The threads formed outlines of a dragon-like head and the clouds made its eyes.

Then, I suddenly heard a silent high pitched sound and felt pain in my left leg.

After which it was separated from my body.

"Gh..."

Even while detached, my leg was still held by these strings in the air.

I then heard more of these sounds and gradually all of my limbs have been separated from my body.

"Gaaah!"

Then finally, it cut off my head and brought its head closer to devour me.

...

...

...

I open my eyes.

All I can see is the dry wasteland extending in all directions.

Shit...

That thing...

What did the humans call it again?

Guardian of the heavens?

I never thought I would actually encounter one of them...

Apparently, they reside high up in the sky guarding the heavens.

If you progress too far off the ground, they will come and kill you.

And based on what I heard, if one of them sets its eyes on you, you will die.

You can't survive a direct encounter with it, let alone defeat it.

Other people can still see it off the ground and won't be targeted.

But if you are the one too high up, you are done for.

Hmm...

I think I got too used to not dying over these few days...

I have to adjust my habits again.

After all, death is just a learning experience for me...

But still...

To be able to reach the border...

The belt is quite amazing...

I knew it would come in handy.

Hmm but that guardian thing...

I'm a little curious about it.

Since humans die when they get too close, they couldn't analyze it too well.

But I come back to life after death.

I'm not sure if it will help me at all in the future, but I should check this out a bit.

...

Oh and maybe I can use the new magic I got on them.

Alright...let's do it again then.

I need to scout the surroundings a bit more anyway.

Once again, I squat down and gather mana.

[Wind blast]

And then I jump.

This time, I look at the opposite side of the land.

In the other direction of the mountains, I can see a huge ravine extending far off my view distance in both the left and the right direction.

A little further behind it, I can see some long structures, but I can't tell what they are for sure.

And then I hit the border again.

The yellow threads restrain me again and the azure smoke clouds start to materialize.

When the threads finally form the head, I gather mana in my eyes and use the magic.

Type: Monster

Name: ???

Gender: ???

Race: Limit beast

Status: ???

Level: 99999

Health: 999999999/999999999

Mana: 999999999/999999999

??!!

What?!

A level of almost a hundred thousand?

And one billion health and mana?

What the hell?!

No wonder nobody can survive an encounter with them!

The beast suddenly releases a loud roar, after which...

...

...

...

I open my eyes.

All I can see is the dry wasteland extending in all directions.

...

I didn't even feel anything.

...

So it was just playing with me the first time?

Damn, what an impossible monster...

...

Well, at least it's not something I have to defeat.

And I hope I won't have to ever fight it.

That thing wasn't in the realm of 'strong'.

It is literally impossible to do anything to it.

...

But I was searching for water, wasn't I?

And I still haven't found any.

This is a problem...

I might need to jump and scout a few more times.

But I'll make sure to not jump as high this time.

|= A few deaths later =|

I guess it doesn't make much of a difference whether I jump too high or not.

Either way, I don't have a good way to cushion the fall other than wind magic.

And since I have to waste time and mana to heal, I might as well commit suicide and restart.

But at least, I finally spotted what I have been looking for.

From the starting position, forward are the mountains I need to head to.

Going back, there is that ravine.

To the left is mostly just the same wasteland with a few hills connected to the mountains.

And to the right, I have spotted some buildings as well as something that looks like a lake.

The buildings were on top of some hill and the lake looked to be further in the hills.

I guess that's where I'm headed now.

I need water.

There is no other choice.

And thus, I started to sprint in the lake's direction.

The wasteland had a few hills here and there, but with my belt, I could easily keep running while jumping over them.

After a few hours though...

I started feeling sluggish.

...

But why?

I can keep running on water for even longer.

This doesn't make sense.

Status screen: open.

Name: Reiza

Gender: Female

Race: Shadow wolfman

Status: Poisoned

Level: 4623

Health: 26489/41452

Mana: 99511/99621

?!

What?

Why is my health halfway drained?

Poisoned?

I didn't even notice!

What poisoned me?!

Shit...

I was underestimating this place, wasn't I?

[Cleanse impurities]

Status: -

...alright...

Not poisoned anymore.

[Heal]

After healing muscles all around my body, I started running again.

...

Only to be attacked by the same sluggish feeling again in a few minutes.

Status: Poisoned

What the heck is poisoning me?!

I cleanse myself again and close my eyes.

Trying to sense mana around me, I spot...

...

A few tiny clumps of mana all over the ground.

What is this?

I open my eyes and look in the direction of those mana clumps.

But there is nothing.

...

I thought my eyes were quite good but...

These must be...

Invisible monsters?

They must have pricked my feet without me noticing.

Damn, how annoying.

How can I deal with this?

[Phantom presence]

They should avoid me with this, right?

Let's continue...

...

But after several minutes, it happened again.

Status: Poisoned

Grr...

Maybe they are not attacking me.

Maybe I'm just accidentally stepping on them without even noticing it.

Damn, what now?

...

Well, if they are only on the ground, this might work.

[Flame guard]

I cover my feet in fire.

...

But I'm still not that great at controlling this.

It burns my feet a bit.

It might make no difference to being poisoned.

...

Well, let's try it for now.

|= An hour later =|

Health: 41256/41452

Mana: 74256/98621

Keeping my feet ablaze and constantly healing them cost me quite a bit of mana.

But at least, I didn't get poisoned again.

Seriously...

I'm not surprised humans don't return from this place.

They can get killed without even noticing they are dying!

This will be really annoying, won't it...?

But, at last, I have arrived at the hill on top of which are some buildings.

Looking closer now, they are...houses.

And a wall is extending around all of them.

Is this a village?

People living here?

As I look up to the village, something suddenly shoots out from the side.

I narrowly dodge it and look in the direction from which it flew.

There is somebody...

They have green-

Suddenly another projectile is shot at me from the opposite side and grazes my leg.

Following that, a group of enemies rush out from atop of that hill.

Shit!

I can't mess around like this.

[Phantom presence]

[Dark world]

The group is momentarily stunned and immediately captured by the darkness.

The two, who tried to attack me from the sides are also captured.

Looking closely, they are not humans.

They have green skin...no, scales.

And they are slightly taller than most humans I met.

But other than that, they use clothing and weapons just like humans.

"RAAAAAAA!"

Suddenly, from my blind spot something jumps at me and tries to cut my neck.

I dodge it by ducking and prepare to retaliate.

[Fire lance]

I shoot my spell at the assailant as I turn around to face him.

My attack is blocked by his sword and...

What?

A human?

Why is there a human now?

"Damn you monster!"

"I will never succumb to your tricks!"

Those words came from a human man staring at me with blood lust.

Bonus:

Hey...

Does all of that mean you can't go to space in this world?

"Of course you can't!"

"It's a fantasy world!"

"Why would you want to go to space?"

"And well, there isn't really space to explore anyway."

"This is the only planet in the world."

But weren't there stars?

And the sun?

"Yeeeah...those are just decorations."

"Just convenient small lights a little further from the planet."

That's lame.

"Hey, do you know how hard is to manage ONE planet?"

"I can't imagine what it would be like if I had to manage an entire galaxy of stars and planets."

But it's still a really harsh punishment for those wanting to go to space.

And what if you just want to build a really tall house?

"Oh, don't worry about that."

"The limit is really high up."

"Even if you build a moderately high tower, it will only reach about half of the limit."

"You see, I'm actually really surprised she managed to reach it."

"Even with the combination of tools she had, it should have been harder than this..."

Did you perhaps mess up again?

And set the limit to be lower there?

"Wha-?!"

"Mess up?"

"Me?"

"Never!"

You should really do something about that ego of yours...